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Weekend reading

How I wonder what you are

The endless night
Gazes into my eyes.
My tears will make
A million stars.

Thus writes Kamini Banga in her delicately penned set of poems titled 'I promise to be a good girl, God'. Kamini Banga wrote these poems over the ten year period when she was battling with breast cancer and its aftermath. In her foreword, she mentions ‘I found writing helped me grieve – something that we are not allowed by our loved ones... I believe grieving is a big healer; it helped me realize what must stay and what I could leave behind.’

Each of the poems has a pain unmistakable in its depth and almost unbearable. The harsh truth expressed in the simplest of phrases, the futile but unavoidable sadness that is an intrinsic nature of such situations hit you and hit you bad. I don’t know who to recommend this book to – not because it’s not good (it’s exceptional) but because it’s so depressing... but still, I’ll say: Read it. It’ll make you feel fortunate for what you have. In any case, poems are meant to be sad and these capture sadness like never before.

Generally speaking,

I haven’t been blogging much off late. And frankly, I don’t have much to say today either. My blogging activity goes up only when I have something to crib about! But these are peaceful days for me. It is one of those rare phases in my life when I don’t have any short term targets to chase while the long term ones still hold and look doable, so life’s good. Hope the phase continues :).

Meanwhile last month, a dear friend of mine from IITK, Abhishek Chaudhury, took that gigantic step of getting married. While we’ve constantly been in touch, Abhishek’s marriage announcement came as quite a jolt to me. One fine day, he calls up and tells me that he's got engaged and is getting married in a couple of months. Boss! Kab? Kahan? Kaise? The suddenness of the whole thing being one (to which he had an arbit explanation that I don’t wanna get into here), Abhishek’s marriage announcement was also a reminder of how quickly the last seven years have passed and how much we’ve all grown from those heady days of our first semester at IIT. The ever-smiling and mischievous Abhishek, who once childishly declared “Main bhi bhaaag ke shaadi karoonga” after having watched Saathiya and said that he would go bungee jumping on his honeymoon, was getting married! The images of that childish Abhishek are so deeply embedded in my memories of him that I found it hard to believe he was getting ready to shoulder the responsibility of a family. So last month, I went to Abhishek and Kirti’s marriage ceremony and they make a handsome couple and I wish them the very best that married life has on offer. Knowing Abhishek, there won’t be a dull day in their lives.

Also, sometime back Diwaker tagged me (by the way, he finds this whole tagging business to be quite silly but apparently, that doesn’t stop him from passing on the tag to others when he gets one!) and since I have nothing else to blog about these days, here goes:

I am thinking about…
how to bring some discipline into my life.

I’ve said…
a lot of things that I didn’t really mean :(.

I want to...
be better at my work and find more time to read.

I wish...
life was quieter.

I hear...
a lot of noise and cribbing and gyan. Oh! Just shut up people!

I wonder…
what is the meaning of life? Is there a meaning at all?

I regret…
not having learnt a musical instrument when I was a kid.

I am…
a nice person :)! Really!

I dance…
Uh!! Never! I have the worst two left feet in the world!

I sing…
songs that I really love when I’m alone :).

I cry…
hardly ever.

I am not always…
as disciplined as I’d like to be.

I make with my hands…
nothing much actually! I’m too lazy for cooking and all.

I write…
quite poorly these days. I think I wasn’t that bad till sometime back.

I confuse…
people’s names all the time.

I need…
someone with me when I’m having a meal.

That’s it from me. Umm... I’m quite bored off this taggy business myself so let me not pass it on to anyone else. But if any of you are interested, have a go...

Play Review: Sammy!

Courage is doing what you believe in.

‘Sammy!’ attempts to depict the transformation of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi from an ordinary man to a Mahatma, and in the process delves into the confusion, dilemmas and internal conflicts that this man, often looked upon as the one who lent a moral force to the nation’s freedom struggle, would have faced during his momentous journey.

The first half showing Gandhi in South Africa disappoints though – the disappointment being the attempt to portray him as a simple and humourous man in a barrister suit resulting in the character showing Charlie-Chaplinish mannerisms, cracking jokes and breaking into a freakish smile after every second line that he utters. And it can be quite irritating; after all, one expects to watch something thoughtful and meaningful when it comes to Gandhi, definitely not something comical as it seems during the first half.

For a play to redeem itself from the situation above to the point where one feels ‘Okay, that was good' is something. ‘Sammy!’ manages to do that with its second half. As the play unfolds, we witness the various exchanges Gandhi has with his own conscience debating the internal dilemmas he has at different stages of his life – the right versus the wrong, the moral versus the immoral. Even as he gets more and more involved in politics, Gandhi never loses sight of his basic principles and morals and throughout draws courage from his convictions and his righteousness. The dialogues Gandhi has with his conscience, his guiding light, are quite interesting and thought provoking. The play also does well in showing a human angle to Gandhi's otherwise larger than life personality. There is a slight hint towards his guilt and regret as a father. His sadness and the fear of loneliness on his wife’s death makes for an insightful moment – the Mahatma, the father of the masses fearing loneliness.

All the actors, other than probably the lead, Joy Sengupta (with his overacting in the first half), do more than justice to their characters. Neha Dubey, essaying the role of Kasturba Gandhi, is exceptionally good.

In their last conversation, Gandhi’s conscience (with a sense of premonition of his death) asks of him to show courage and Gandhi replies back saying ‘Courage is doing what you believe in’ and smilingly walks away for his evening prayers, only to be assassinated by Nathuram Godse. But by then, he has already done his job and made himself redundant to the Indian political scene. For a shy barrister who was too nervous to be able to speak a word in his first case, Gandhi came far doing what he believed in.

Sheesh!!

Shouldn't have said it. The moment I said it, I knew I had made a mistake. Sometimes, one says something meaningless which might not be so meaningless for someone else. Worse still, it might hurt the other person. And worst, saying sorry won't change a thing.

A couple of days ago, I said something really stupid, thinking it'd be taken as a joke. Only it wasn't. Shucks!

Daffodils - William Wordsworth

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

.... Beautiful poem, isn't it?

This noisy world

There’s just too much noise and clutter in the world. People talk so much man, its crazy!! Sometimes, I wish - For a day, everything would simply fall silent! I mean, one day with no one talking, no phones ringing, no traffic sounds, not even the sound of the fan or A/C in your room... nothing but the sound of silence. Just you and your own thoughts for a day - will be really calming for the mind...

Seasons in the Sun

‘Seasons in the Sun’ is one of my old time favourite songs. It had originally been written in French in 1961 under the title of "Le Moribond" (The Dying Man), by Belgian poet-composer Jacques Brel and was later translated into English and recorded by Canadian-born singer Terry Jacks to quickly become the largest-selling album in Canadian history at the time.

‘Seasons in the Sun’ is the story of a dying man, bidding farewell to loved ones who have shared his life. Shortly before Terry's recording came out, Jacques Brel retired, at the peak of his popularity. Fans around the world were stunned, but the composer would give no reason. Finally, the truth was revealed. After a quiet, six-year battle against cancer, Brel succumbed to the disease and died, on October 9, 1978.

Here are the lyrics, some of the most sadly beautiful lines you’ll ever come across:

Goodbye to you, my trusted friend.
We've known each other since we're nine or ten.
Together we climbed hills or trees.
Learned of love and ABC's,
Skinned our hearts and skinned our knees.
Goodbye my friend, it's hard to die,
When all the birds are singing in the sky,
Now that the spring is in the air.
Pretty girls are everywhere.
When you see them I'll be there.
We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.
But the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time.

Goodbye, Papa, please pray for me,
I was the black sheep of the family.
You tried to teach me right from wrong.
Too much wine and too much song,
Wonder how I get along.
Goodbye, Papa, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky,
Now that the spring is in the air.
Little children everywhere.
When you see them I'll be there.
We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.
But the wine and the song, like the seasons, have all gone.

Goodbye, Michelle, my little one.
You gave me love and helped me find the sun.
And every time that I was down
You would always come around
And get my feet back on the ground.
Goodbye, Michelle, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky,
Now that the spring is in the air.
With the flowers ev'rywhere.
I wish that we could both be there.
We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.
But the stars we could reach were just starfish on the beach.

Running away..

I like the feeling of being tired in the evening while heading back home on weekdays. Makes me feel good about my day. Makes it a day well spent in my mind. At my new job, I’m a complete novice and hence a bit slow even at otherwise regular stuff. The work hours are already long so there’s that much less space to stretch my own work hours to accommodate my slowness and I end up sitting long hours trying to understand even the simplest of things. But I’m enjoying my life right now. My work is on the lines of what I expected it to be, only better. I’m learning a tremendous lot; and the hectic work schedule helps me keep my mind off everything that I have wanted to get away from for some time now.

Someone recently asked me - How long would I want to stay on in a job that demands these long hours and exerts such high pressure; How long would I want to do this to myself and why? Maybe the real question is – What is that we’re running after? One question that keeps coming right back to stare at you, eh? I really don’t know how to answer this one. Over time, I’ve realized that I’m not really running after something in particular. There’s no point at which someone like me stops and feels happy about getting there. After a while, you just keep running because that’s all you know; that’s all you do well; running becomes a purpose in itself; and you start identifying yourself as a runner. Also, sometimes I feel that rather than running towards something, I’m running away from some of the inherently moribund and depressing aspects of life by drowning myself in the never-ending (and after a while pointless) struggle for more... am not sure if it really is a permanent solution but it’s a quickfire one and for now, am thankful for that much.

Time for a change and a fresh start

Some time ago, on this blog, I’d cribbed about an exceptionally bad day. I wasn’t enjoying work at office and my motivation levels had been going down. At the time, I had mentioned on this space that apart from the conscious efforts of turning things around my way, a part of me was also hoping for lady luck to smile on me, as she had so many times before. Well, as always, I got lucky again. I recently got the opportunity to work for a startup Private Equity fund and I’m taking it up; In fact, am quite excited about it. Private Equity has been something I’ve wanted to get into for sometime now and I’ve had a certain appeal towards startups since late IIT days so both things coming together is like fucking fantastic (I’m sorry, the phrase just stuck in my mind and it manages to convey the sentiment exactly)!

My stint with DB has been short but I think I’ve learnt more in the last 8-9 months than what I learnt in the two years of my MBA programme. For one, I learnt a lot from my boss. Driven, ambitious, demanding and yet, considerate towards his subordinates’ desires to fulfill their own ambitions, Manoj has been the perfect boss and I am glad that he was my first boss. Although I was just a young trainee trying to find my place in the bank, he gave me the feeling that he trusted my intelligence and valued my opinion, which is probably as much you can ask from a boss (apart from a hefty year-end bonus, of course :)!) as a trainee. Manoj also managed to strike a rare balance so that I feared his temper and at the same time considered him my mentor and career counselor within the company. I learnt from him how one can always manage to remain down to earth and approachable no matter how senior one becomes. My other learnings in DB were mostly organizational in nature – partly observational and partly experiential – the key one being trying to undertsand how work, responsibilities and recognition flows between people in a workplace setup. DB also introduced me to the good life – living out of hotels and serviced apartments for months, training in London, workshops in Singapore, corporate dinners and the works – Ah, the advantages of working in a huge MNC are no longer mine.

Joining Blue River brings along with it a kind of nervous excitement associated with new places and new experiences... there is the excitement of being a part of the growth story of a startup firm and there is the nervousness arising out of questions such as ‘Will I really be able to do well in the unstructured work environment of a startup? Will I be able to live up to the challenging world of Private Equity?’ But this nervousness is motivating in nature; it has an element of eagerness to it; it pushes me to put in my best and all in all, I feel good about myself at this point; I feel hopeful and on track towards my goals. At this very moment, life is beautiful :).

All my only dreams

As a young boy, I used to shamelessly dream and aspire for the heavens, the earth and everything in between. I used to dream of doing well in life, not just financially but also in terms of true achievements that would have made my parents and, most of all, myself proud. I used to dream of ideals like career satisfaction and happiness and sometimes, love. Maybe I asked for a bit too much.

Most would say I’ve had a good life so far. Quite often, the same is my own feeling. While the years have been good to me and my satisfaction quotient has steadily improved, there have also been compromises along the way. Some dreams have come true and some have fallen apart despite my best efforts. As I look back, some late realizations, a few mistakes and yet a few other instances wherein I should have showed some character but instead faltered come to mind and they hurt my pride. Love hasn’t happened in all these years and it certainly doesn’t seem to be around the corner. Career satisfaction is another thing that doesn’t seem to be around the corner. As the years have passed, some maturity (read realization of ground realities) has seeped in and on occasions, the dreamer in me has started taking the backseat. It’s a tad sad but nevertheless, true.

One of my friends, going through a hard time, recently remarked ‘...I feel this small sadness inside me; the kind that comes when some dreams break.’ Perhaps, there comes a time in everyone’s life when the realization dawns in that not all dreams come true, that some always remain dreams. Perhaps, everyone feels a small sadness inside of them at some point or the other...

Nevertheless, I don’t regret being a dreamer (in fact, I continue being one though in a somewhat lesser way) and I’m not blaming anyone else here. I’m just regretting being a flawed individual who might not be able to make all his dreams come true.

An old friend comes along

Recently, in Bangalore, I met an old friend of mine from school days. We were meeting after six and a half long years. While me and most other classmates of mine had taken up the oft trodden path of engineering and software jobs/MBA, Himanshu had been very clear from an early age about joining the armed forces and had accordingly joined the NDA after school. Meeting him after all these years has been quite a good experience. For one, we had so much to catch up on and our conversation made me realize how different our lives have been since we passed out. I mean his experiences over the last few years have been unlike anything I’ve heard of. It also made me realize how much I have changed from school days – the transformation from a shy boy to a young man, relentlessly and aggressively chasing his ambitions while trying to find a purpose in life on the side, was put into perspective in that one meeting with Himanshu. Secondly, it was great to see that although there were times when we ran out of things to talk and there were silences, we were quite comfortable with the silences till something else came up to talk about. I guess time and distance don’t really affect good friendships much, do they?

Hoping...

On Friday morning, I got out of bed in a good mood. I remember thinking that morning that the year had been quite good so far (I tend to look at years from April to March rather than from Jan to Dec) and the remaining three months were also promising to hold some exciting things in store for me. As it turned out, my morning mood not withstanding, Friday was one of the worst days of the year. As the day passed, things went from good to not so good, then bad and then worse still by the end of the evening. It’s strange (or is it really?) that however much I seem to plan out things, my life has always taken it own course – most of the best and the worst of things (and those two categories pretty much cover all the important events) have happened suddenly, without me expecting them to happen the way they did. Thankfully, more often than not, life has been kind to me and as much as I’m planning to get out of the current situation, a part of me is also hoping for something good to happen just out of the blue, as it has happened so many times in the past :).

Book tag again

AK tagged me to a ‘Books-I-read-this-year’ tag. So here goes:

• A life lived later by Anurag Mathur: Yet another collection of poems by an Indian writer. Yet again masterful. Here is a set of intensely written poems straight from the mournful poet’s heart.
• Youth by J.M. Coetzee: For the uninitiated, J.M. Coetzee was the first writer to win the Booker Prize twice. He has also been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. ‘Youth’, perhaps (am not sure), is his only book which didn’t win any award and yet, it is one of the most insightful investigations into the youth’s mind that I’ve ever come across. I just wonder what his other award winning novels are like. Next one on my reading list is ‘Disgrace’ by the same author.
• The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri: Jhumpa Lahiri’s first book, a collection of short stories, won her the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. But ‘The Interpreter of maladies’ is more than just an award winning book. It is a collection of your own experiences, your trials and tribulations and triumphs, your observation of other people’s sorrows, how they affect you and your feelings of awe and amazement at the phenomenon that is life. ‘The Interpreter of maladies’ is about you. Simply brilliant.
• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri: Absolutely wonderful. Unexpectedly, Jhumpa Lahiri’s second lived up to the extremely high standards set in the minds of her readers after her first book. ‘The Namesake’ is about a Bengali family settling in the US, the identity crisis of the family, the loneliness of a young Indian bride in a strange land, the mothers discomfort at seeing how comfortable her children are in this foreign land, the coming to terms of a young man with his roots. Just go ahead and read it. It starts slowly but once you’re past the first 100 pages, you don’t want the book to end. The themes that Lahiri captures in her writings are very very real; no exaggerations, no unnecessary drama, just life as it is. Having read the last two books of hers, I’d really love to read a collection of poems by Jhumpa Lahiri.
• The Bootstrapper’s Bible by Seth Godin: I’ve had the e-book version of this book for a long time. The three month break after IIML gave me the opportunity to delve into the wisdom of this short booklet that gives off tips on how to start and successfully run one’s own small company. Inspiring. Easy reading too.
• Ruskin Bond’s Biography: This is what I wrote about this one earlier on this blog: Came across Ruskin Bond’s biography in a bookshop and being the diehard Ruskin Bond fan that I am, I instantly bought it. It turned out to be quite a good read. Short, simple and bittersweet, it was like one of his own short stories. Ruskin’s parents divorced when he was eight; his father under whose custody he was after the divorce, passed away when he was ten. At the age of seventeen, he left Dehra for London to fulfill his dream of becoming a writer. In a way, he had a sad and hard childhood and it probably set up the themes of his writing: Living in the past - remembrance of love, nostalgia, lament over loss. And yet, there is no bitterness in his answers when he talks about his life in the biography. As he puts it:

  Most of my life I have given of myself, and in return I have received love in abundance. Life hasn’t been a bed of roses. And yet, quite often, I’ve had roses out of season.

• Steve Waugh’s Autobiography: Steve Waugh has been admired all over the Cricket playing world, not just for his cricketing talents and acumen, but also for the way he conducted himself on and off the field. His autobiography is about the ups and downs of a life that has observed greater talents than its own and yet has been able to command respect from them too. His thoughts on captaincy, leadership, retirement and life beyond cricket are those of a deep thinker and very insightful. The only disappointment that I have from this book is that it does not do justice to so many of the brilliant innings that Lara has played against Australia. Waugh is all praise for Warne and McGrath and his other illustrious team mates but when it comes to praising Lara, Tendulkar or that brilliant partnership of Laxman and Dravid, Waugh has been stingy with only a few words here and there. Other than that, it’s a good read.
• We weren’t lovers like that by Navtej Sarna: This is Navtej Sarna’s first novel. Though the theme of the novel is quite good, I felt the writing style lets the promise of the theme down. I wouldn’t recommend this one to others.
• Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts: Highly Overrated. Have already written about it before.

That’s my list. I’ll tag Diwaker, Jaya and Abhijit (let me try and push him into regular blogging).

If I could tell you - W.H. Auden

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose all the lions get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.